Halong Bay, Hue and Hoi An

We left Hanoi for a two day cruise on Halong bay. We were greeted by nice weather, and were grouped with a nice bunch of people on the boat we spent a night on. The following day saw some rain coming in, but that wasn’t too bad as it gave the whole bay a completely different feel; with mist and a gray overlay on all the lush green karst islands.

The tour to Halong ended in Hanoi, but we took the night bus to Hue on the same day.

Hue is an old imperial capital of Vietnam, the main attraction being the old walled city which also houses a Beijing style “forbidden city” where the emperor, his family and their eunuchs lived until the end of imperial rule in the late 19th century. The whole thing has obvious and heavy Chinese influence. Unfortunately Hue was also the location of a major Vietnam War battle and the damages to the historic structures is considerable. Much of the forbidden city is host to signs proclaiming which structure used to stand where a hole is now present.

We only spent 5-6 hours in Hue, partly due to bad weather following us and partly because it’s not the most exciting place in the world… a 4 hour bus ride took us to excelent Hoi An.

We got to Hoi An with two really nice Swiss girls we met on the Halong bay cruise. We found a hotel and as we unofficially decided to take a break from have spend the following 2.5 days eating, drinking, lazing on the beach and then eating some more. I even did a Vietnamese cooking class i really enjoyed. Hoi An is also famous for the thousand tailors in it, Danit made good use of that.

From here we’re moving on to Nah Trang and Mui Ne. Both are beach destinations, and I am well pleased with that. Try to do some diving, maybe wind-surfing and get a nice tan.